Welland and District Humane Society has found itself overwhelmed with cats after an owner surrended 146, some not in ideal health, Thursday.

Humane society executive director John Greer said the agency was called out to a home in the King Street and Ontario Road area of Welland by Niagara Regional Police.

The owner of the home, he said, was being evicted, which was why police as well as a bailiff were already on site. He added it was those agencies that called the humane society.

“Everywhere we looked there were cats,” Greer said. “It was like the floor was moving.”

While he said the humane society has seen much worse, the conditions the animals were living in were not ideal. Dirty litter was one of the issues in the medium-sized bungalow-type home, he said.

Some of the animals themselves were also not in ideal health – there are a number of cats with upper respiratory issues and many underweight cats as a result of their living conditions.

At this time, Greer doesn’t suspect the resident intended any ill-will toward the animals. He figures the sheer number of cats alone is what led to the issues.

Welland’s bylaw says a person can have no more than three cats in their home. Bylaw or not, however, this many animals is well beyond a single person’s capacity to handle, Greer said.

An investigation is now underway into why the resident had so many cats.

“I know we’ve got a lot of calls from the public as far as cats going missing. We don’t believe at this time that she was out rounding cats up or anything,” he said.

Greer suspects she may have thought she was doing a good thing taking them in or it could be a potential animal hoarding situation. The fact that none of them were spayed or neutered and were probably regularly mating added to the numbers as well.

All the same, he said residents are encouraged to come take a look at the cats to see if any of them are theirs. None of the cats are microchipped or tattooed.

Ultimately, the results of the investigation will determine what course of action the humane society will take in regards to the resident.

He said it took the humane society six or seven hours to get all of the cats out of the home. All of them are friendly, he said, so it was more a matter of volume than having to chase them down.

The humane society had to bring an early end to its usual service hours to take care of the situation. Greer said it was “all hands on deck” as staff travelled back and forth between the home and the shelter. A vet was also brought in to immediately assess, vaccinate, and treat the cats.

Thirty of the cats have now gone to the Fort Erie SPCA and 12 to the Cat Adoption Centre at the Seaway Mall. Other humane societies have also offered to take on cats if necessary.

There are kittens as young as four weeks old and adult cats, some of which are currently pregnant. All of them are or will be adoptable.

Greer said a couple of things are working in the shelter’s favour in this situation. During this time of the year, he said they don’t have many cats in the shelter, so there is the space to accommodate them. Another way the shelter is lucky is that there is a pet adoption event next weekend at PetSmart in St. Catharines and Niagara Falls.

Because of this large intake of cats, the humane society is looking for donations. Food and monetary donations are welcome, but Greer said monetary donations are more needed at this time as the veterinary care and spaying and neutering is costly.